


Baruch atah Adonia

by flutter



Category: West Wing
Genre: Gen, Hospital, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-07
Updated: 2005-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:35:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutter/pseuds/flutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh visits Donna in the hospital (references to Season 5).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baruch atah Adonia

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers about Donna, kind of, in Season 5 from the episode "Gaza". More soft-spoilery than anything.

His eyes traced the wounds on her face, a road map of red creases that had been pulled taut by hours of surgery. Some ventured beneath gauze bandages to where he couldn’t follow; they had to be worse if they were covered, had to hurt her. His fingers hovered over each long gash, wanting to smooth the lines until they disappeared. He inhaled as if on a gasp—a deep, satisfying breath of oxygen that afforded his mind the opportunity to spend a few seconds longer to focus on her face and on his half-formed prayers.   
  
It had been years since he had prayed. It had been years since he believed enough _to_ pray—not since Joanie. He needed to believe now, needed her to heal and be whole and be his Donna again.   
  
He perched himself on the edge of the stool he had occupied for hours, not leaving her side unless it was necessary. His fingers flexed around the sidebar of her hospital bed as he leaned forward to whisper to her. “This isn’t you,” he said. “You’re a mess; your hair hasn’t been brushed, your face looks weird… they have you laid out in a sterile room in—“he looked around him, out at the dark sky beyond the window—“freakin’ Germany. I never should have said you could go on that trip. You—we—should be at the White House. You should be yelling at me, fighting with—"  
  
The soles of his shoes slapped the tile floor as he jumped to his feet, maneuvering around the foot of her hospital bed. He made his way towards the window, his hands already reaching out to grip the edges of the drawn curtains. The streets twinkled at him as he braced to pull the curtains together. Below, as bundled men and women crossed paths and cars cruised by, lamps were brought to life with the still darkening sky. He spared the view one last glance before he yanked at the linens until they fell closed.   
  
The stool remained beside her bed where he had vacated it moments earlier. He hadn’t expected it to move, really, but he had been looking for something new, something different, during his entire stay at the hospital. He searched it even now for answers but there was nothing more for him there than the same wood grain and the same wood varnish.   
  
It felt smooth beneath his fingers as he dragged it closer to her bed. And he sat there, next to her—close enough to see the individual puckers of skin that peeled back from her hitting the road—and wished she were awake and talking to him. Instead, she was still, but for her chest rising and falling in long, steady breaths.  
  
Didn’t people say the sick or injured could hear you while they slept or were in comas? Isn’t that what she was now? She just laid there, her skin pale and tinged green by those ridiculous hospital lights—she breathed, her heart beat and it’s steady rhythm caused the machines to blip and wiggle lines. He watched the lines move and dance across the electronic faces, watched the I.V. drip small amounts of pain killer into the thin, coiling tubes that lead to the needle in one of her veins.   
  
He could really use a drink.   
  
“I could really use a drink,” he said out loud so she could hear him, so she could play the game they had resorted to in their years of working together. “I can drink with the best of them.” He closed his eyes, half-hoping she would wake up and have one of her signature retorts ready for him.  
  
"You can't drink with any of them,” she would say.   
  
When he opened his eyes she was still silent, still sleeping, still hooked up to the machines and causing things to blip and bleep and—god dammit, why wasn’t she doing what he needed her to? He needed her to wake up and argue with him. He needed her to sit up and give him that blank face so he would know he was being foolish. He needed her—just her. Why didn’t she just wake up so he could say, “okay, you’re fine,” and then quote something ridiculous to her, like a line from _My Fair Lady_. “Where the devil are my slippers…”  
  
His head dropped to his arms where they rest on her bed. He fought to not squeeze her hand when he reached for it and, instead, stroked the smooth skin underneath his fingers. She was so delicate, yet not—Donna was anything but and he knew she would be the first to say so to his face. What would he do if she didn’t—no, he wouldn’t think about that; there were no if’s, not with Donna. For Donna there were only when’s. His face wanted to crumple, to give in to the worry, the pain, the frustration, the anger—to give in to all of it.  
  
Where his head was bowed—where his breath warmed and flushed his cheeks—he struggled to compose himself. He fought for distance and for composure and something to make him think about anything else other than her lying there, possibly dying, possibly worse. And inside his head he sorted through a mass of childhood memories, the last from when he believed and prayed and cared about the meaning behind the words. He just wanted one—one memory.  
  
All he could remember was the blessing he had spent weeks as a child learning, reciting to his little sister, his dog, his father, until it was perfected and he could speak them before lighting the Hanukkah candles. He wasn’t certain he even remembered their translation but he mouthed the words, moved his lips to form the syllables of each until he felt he had it right.   
  
He lifted his head so to free his arms. Donna’s hand was still held by one of his but his other arm lifted and slipped through where they were joined. It laid out alongside her body as it stretched to touch the skin of her bicep. He squeezed her there to see if she’d respond to the altered contact, to the added warmth of his arm and hands. When she didn’t, he leaned to his right so he could rest his head on the edge of the bed while holding onto her.   
  
His lips still moved, still formed the words, but he strengthened his voice and recited to her as best he could, the only prayer left to him:  
  


> _Baruch atah Adonai, Elohaynu, melech ha-olam,  
>  she-asah neeseem la-avotaynu ba-yameem ha-heim  
> ba-z'man ha-zeh._
> 
> _Blessed are you, Lord, our God, king of the universe,  
>  who performed miracles for our ancestors in those  
> days at this time._


End file.
